


Après Minuit

by vondrostes



Category: The Tunnel (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Disability, F/M, Infidelity, Mentioned Elise Wassermann/Karl Roebuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 15:00:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vondrostes/pseuds/vondrostes
Summary: Set in a very non-canon future circa 2016 where Adam survives (albeit with minor brain damage from hypoxia) and Elise has recently moved in with Karl. Bad decisions are made.





	Après Minuit

**Author's Note:**

> Um I predicted the finale of The Tunnel & then I rage quit the series because I was right. And then I saw a gif on tumblr that made me think "wow what if Elise & Adam got it on" & then this happened. I am (a little) sorry.
> 
> Follow me on Twitter for more writing goodies: @vondrostes (personal) & @TerranAlleen (writing updates)

Elise always waited until she was sure Karl was asleep before getting up and going to the couch instead. She’d explained to him when they first started that she couldn’t sleep alongside someone but he hadn’t seemed to understand, apparently believing that love, or connection, would cure whatever psychological affliction had caused her to despise human intimacy.

It wasn’t anything of the sort. She just couldn’t sleep.

Even the soft hum of the fan overhead bothered her, so she turned it off before setting another alarm for early in the morning, just before she knew Karl’s would go off. That would give Elise enough time to crawl back into bed and pretend like she’d spent the night there. Like she did every morning.

It wasn’t a simple solution, but it was better than dealing with the emotional fallout from Karl, who seemed to take everything far too personally.

Elise was right on the verge of sleep when the sound of footsteps behind the sofa yanked her back into consciousness. She bolted upright, hand reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there, and came face to face with a dead-eyed stare she dreaded.

“What are you doing up?” she asked in a voice just barely above a whisper.

“I was hungry,” Adam replied. He didn’t seem to care that she was sleeping in the living room instead of in the bedroom with his father.

He turned away from her and headed into the kitchen. She heard the fridge door opening and the clanking of jars and bottles being moved around as Adam rifled through the countless leftovers and condiments that Karl refused to just throw away (who needed four different bottles of mustard?), presumably looking for something actually edible.

Elise pulled the quilted blanket she’d taken from the linen closet over her head to try and stifle the noise. She closed her eyes tightly, willing herself to tune out the commotion from the kitchen so she could get at least some sleep before she had to sneak back into bed with Karl.

Suddenly there was silence. Elise poked her head out from under the blanket to find Adam hovering over her, something clutched in his hands. They were shaking, enough that Elise could tell even in the dark.

Elise sighed and sat up once more. “What?” she asked, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice.

“I need help,” Adam said haltingly, and Elise felt a pang of embarrassment, guilt even, at her tone.

Elise sighed again and climbed off the couch. Elise took the object from Adam’s hands and discovered it was a jar of peanut butter. She walked into the kitchen with it and flicked on one of the overhead lights, casting a dim glow over the area around the fridge. She could tell from the sound of his footsteps against the tile that Adam had followed her and was standing relatively close as she placed the jar on the counter next to the sink before making an attempt to twist the top off.

It was screwed on too tight and Elise immediately realized why Adam, who had been much better since she’d moved in—in fact, that had been one of the conditions affecting her willingness to do so—had been suddenly reduced to asking someone half his size for help with opening a jar of peanut butter. Elise made a mental note to finally confront Karl and have him re-organize the pantry and fridge so this wouldn’t happen in the future. Maybe they could move everything to plastic containers instead.

“There,” she said with a quiet grunt, after finally managing to unscrew the lid. Elise turned to find Adam standing much closer to her than she’d expected. With the light on now, Elise could tell that he, like herself, was only wearing undergarments and a t-shirt, the thin white cotton almost transparent.

She glanced up at his face automatically and then back down again, feeling her cheeks starting to flush.

“Do you need…anything else?” Elise asked haltingly, almost forgetting to use English instead of French, and trying desperately to focus on anything but the way Adam’s boxer-briefs were drawn tight over—

His hands were suddenly planted against the counter on either side of her, and visuals were no longer a problem, as she couldn’t see anything but pale skin and white cotton with Adam in her space like this.

“I need you,” Adam said.

He practically breathed the words into Elise’s ear, sending a line of goosebumps trailing along the nape of her neck and down her back. She shivered when they reached the base of her spine and tried to inch backwards to create space between them.

But there wasn’t anywhere to go. “Adam, what are you doing?” Elise asked.

Adam drew a hand back, looping it around her wrist instead. He tugged at it gently, slowly pulling it toward himself, as if giving Elise the chance to yank it back.

She didn’t. But her brain hadn’t caught up to her body.

“You’re not well,” Elise tried to reason, even as her fingers were brushing against the warm skin of his thigh. “It wouldn’t be right.”

Elise remembered what Karl had told her, about the mood swings, the difficulty speaking, the way Adam sometimes seemed to be absent from his own body. But they’d all been reassured that it was temporary, that the brain damage Adam had suffered as a result from his near-death experience would likely improve with time. He still had some trouble with fine motor functions, but apart from that, he’d seemed normal the last few months, albeit still withdrawn.

“Fuck that,” he told her, and then his hand was pressing hers down over his cock, hard and straining against the coarse fabric of his boxer-briefs. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when my dad’s not around.”

That wasn’t precisely true, Elise thought. She made it her duty to avoid looking at Adam altogether when she could manage it, but either way, Adam wasn’t wrong about her motivations. She shouldn’t want this—certainly not with Karl, who was Adam’s _father,_ just a few rooms away—but impulse control had never been one of Elise’s talents.

Elise was the one to initiate the kiss, feeling almost relieved when she felt Adam’s lips opening under hers. She’d always run cold but Adam was the opposite, every inch of him burning hot as she moved her hands—one sliding from the front of his underwear around to grab his ass, pulling him in closer to her, while the other pushed up the hem of his cotton t-shirt until he finally got the memo and pulled back just far enough to rip it off entirely.

Elise’s long-sleeved shirt presented slightly more of a challenge. She managed to tangle herself up in it within seconds and emerged pink-faced and breathless after Adam helped extricate her.

She’d believed they were both united in their goal of moving on to the main event as quickly as possible, but Adam suddenly stooped low to press his mouth to her throat, and Elise froze.

Adam ducked back and assessed her face with a frown. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Elise grabbed his hand before he could draw back and pressed it to her breast, an echo of his earlier advances. “Are you?” she asked, wondering if he realized how fast her heart was beating under his palm.

Adam huffed out something resembling a laugh before leaning down to kiss her. His hands moved to her waist as the kiss deepened and then his thumbs were sliding underneath the waistband of her panties, slowly inching them down until finally, they fell to the floor.

Adam’s larger frame was still boxing Elise in against the counter, but he wasn’t naked yet, and they only had so much time. She broke the kiss and sunk to her knees.

Adam stared down at her open-mouthed as she peeled his boxer-briefs down just far enough to free his cock. She stared at it for a second, more out of curiosity than admiration, and then darted forward to give the shaft a cursory lick.

Adam leapt back as if he’d been burnt.

Elise braced a hand against the counter and pulled herself back onto her feet, her face hot from embarrassment until she realized that Adam was wriggling out of his pants, looking keener than ever. He kicked them aside and reached forward to tug at her wrist.

“Come on,” he urged, pulling her along behind as he practically sprinted out of the kitchen, somehow managing to flick the switch back off on the way out.

For a moment, Elise thought Adam was leading her back to his bedroom, which was right next door to where Karl was sleeping, but as they approached the sofa, she realized that was a better plan. They’d have less chance of being heard.

Adam only let go of her when they got to the back of the couch. He tumbled over it onto the cushions in an uncomfortable looking somersault, and then poked his head back up to look at Elise expectantly. She shook her head, unpleasantly reminded by the trick of just how young Adam really was. But the easiest way to forget was via distraction.

Elise sauntered around to the front of the couch and stood over Adam with her hands on her hips, staring down at his darkened form, only illuminated now by the moonlight coming in from the sliding glass door.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, watching as he wanked himself almost lazily, with slow measured strokes.

“What do you want me to do?”

It wasn’t the answer Elise needed, but it was nothing less than she expected from Adam. Despite all his outward bravado, his insecurities shone through like sunlight through gossamer. He was different from his father in that way; sometimes, Elise wanted different.

“I want you,” Elise said, pulling apart Adam’s hands as she settled into his lap, “to make me cry.”

She felt Adam suck in a breath against her collarbone as reached down between them to guide him into herself. His fingernails dug grooves into her thighs.

“Make me cry,” she said again as he rocked up into her, slowly at first, and then faster, the quiet grunts emanating from his throat as loud as thunder rumbling in her ears.

When they were finished, Adam rolled Elise onto her back and collapsed on top of her. Elise’s tears made her eyelashes cling together, and she blinked rapidly to clear them before finally giving up and nuzzling her face into Adam’s chest to wipe the moisture away.

Adam sat up, a heavy weight against her thighs, and stared down at her with a painfully fond half-smile.

“I wish I could take a photo of you like this,” he said, his thumb tracing convoluted patterns against her thigh.

Elise didn’t respond, not wanting to ruin the moment with what they both knew to be true. Photos were an unnecessary risk, and they’d risked enough already.

But the moment ended anyway, when Adam’s stomach gurgled loudly less than a minute later. Dead silence followed in its wake as Adam and Elise just stared at each other, neither sure how to react.

“You didn’t eat your sandwich,” Elise said finally, after the silence had started to become uncomfortable.

“I didn’t even get a chance to make it,” Adam countered as if it were Elise’s fault.

His stomach grumbled again and Elise pushed him off of her so she could get up.

“I’ll make one for you,” she volunteered, surprising even herself with the offer.

Elise hopped off the couch and landed on shockingly unsteady legs, wobbling precariously for a moment before regaining her balance. She picked up the quilt that had been lying discarded on the floor and wrapped it around herself like a cape, feeling strange about walking back into the kitchen completely naked.

Elise felt disgusting in a way that she always did after sex, of course, but missing was the shame she’d expected, considering the situation she’d found herself in. They hadn’t even used a condom, a fact that was all-too obvious to Elise as her thighs stuck together uncomfortably with every step she took.

Her long-sleeved sleep shirt was lying on the floor where she’d dropped it next to the counter, her panties lying almost neatly beside. In contrast, Adam’s shirt and underpants had been flung to nearly opposite sides of the kitchen, with his cotton t-shirt practically hanging off of the handle of the cupboard next to the fridge.

Elise stared at the shirt evaluatingly as she dropped the quilt and pulled her own shirt back on. She shrugged and reached for the t-shirt, using it to wipe up some of the mess between her legs. She’d toss it into Adam’s laundry basket on her way back to bed.

“That’s disgusting,” Adam said suddenly, and Elise whirled around to find him standing completely naked in the entryway to the kitchen, looking far more casual than he should have.

“You’re disgusting,” she retorted.

Adam’s features contorted into a grin and he chuckled, covering his mouth at the last minute to cover the sound. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you make a joke,” he said.

“I joke,” Elise told him.

“No, you don’t.”

No, she supposed, she didn’t. What was the point when things like this happened to her? Elise’s life was already the biggest cosmic joke there was.

Elise must have stared too long without speaking because Adam’s smile suddenly morphed into a frown. “Give me those,” he snapped, reaching toward the boxer-briefs lying in a heap near Elise’s right foot.

She leaned down to pick them up and handed them back to him wordlessly. “Do you still want your sandwich?” she asked calmly after watching him struggle to put his underpants back on.

He glanced up at her with a hint of pink in his cheeks now, looking surprised by the request. “Sure,” he said breathlessly, all of the venom in his voice gone, as if it had never even been there to begin with.

Elise supposed she could have attributed that to his hypoxic brain injury as well, but she knew from experience that men were just as prone as women to lashing out when their feelings were hurt. Adam was probably afraid that she’d say this was a mistake—it was—and that they shouldn’t ever do it again—they shouldn’t.

But Elise couldn’t make that promise to either Adam or herself.

So instead she grabbed two slices of bread and spread peanut butter methodically on both before grabbing the bottle of honey from the cupboard and adding a layer on top to make the most disgusting concoction she could possibly imagine.

And Elise watched from across the dining table as Adam ate every bit of it with gusto, the slight quirk at the corners of her lips like a shadow of the beaming smile that spread across Adam’s face when he caught her looking.

There wasn’t anything right about this. And it didn’t matter.


End file.
